Privacy Policy

Last Updated: April 7, 2020

Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. We want to make your experience online satisfying and safe. If you have any questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy, you may email us at info@handknotted.com. We welcome your feedback and suggestions to help us improve our policies and practices.

This Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") is designed to help you understand how Unique USA Inc. and/or its affiliates (collectively "Unique" "Us", "our" or "We") collect and process the information that you share when you use this, any of our websites (together, the "Site"), and our mobile application (the "App," and together with the Site, the "Service").

Before submitting information to the Service, please review this Privacy Policy carefully. By using or accessing the Service, you accept the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you prefer that we not collect and process information about you, please do not provide it to us and do not access the Service.

1. Information We Collect

   We collect the following information, including:

   • Personal Information You Share with Us:

     "Personal Information" is information that can personally identify you, such as your name, email address and telephone number. We maintain one or more databases to store your Personal Information and may retain it as reasonably required to serve you and operate the Service. Personal Information that we collect depends on how you use the Service and through optional, voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys. Providing your Personal Information to us is your choice. If you register to use the Service, we may collect Personal Information including your name, email address, and telephone number. If you choose not to provide us with certain Personal Information, you may not be able to take advantage of certain features of the Service; and

   • Information We Collect Automatically:

     When you visit the Service, we may automatically collect identifier and other technical information such as your browser information, operating system information, device information, TCP-IP address; and the date, time, length of stay and specific pages accessed during your visits to the Service ("Online Information"). Information gathered through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our Sites allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our audience.

2. Children

   We do not knowingly collect any Personal Information from children under 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. If Unique learns that a child under the age of 13 has submitted Personal Information (defined below) online without parental consent, we will take all reasonable measures to delete the information as soon as possible and to not use such information for any purpose except where necessary to protect the safety of the child or others as required or allowed by law. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us here.

3. Optional Voluntary Information

   We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

   • Electronic newsletters (Dispatches)

     We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. Unique gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.

   • Message boards/forums

     Users of the Site's Message Boards and Forums must register separately for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.

   • "E-mail this to a friend" Service.

     Our Site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend." The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.

   • Polling

     We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. Unique may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.

   • Surveys

     Unique may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers, and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

4. Usage Tracking

   Unique tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. Unique does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser). Unique sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

5. Cookies and Online Identification Tools

   Like many website providers, we use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and provide a better web experience. Your IP address is used to help identify you and your shopping cart, and to gather Online Information. We use web beacons (a.k.a. clear GIFs, web bugs or pixel tags) to personalize your experience of the Service and to generate information about Service traffic and trends. Web beacons collect Online Information such as the type of browser that you use and your IP address. Web beacons may be used alone or in conjunction with cookies; when web beacons are used with cookies, they may link Online Information to other Personal Information that you have provided to us. Web beacons usually are not visible to you.

   We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information, although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Unique uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above) and our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates.

   You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.

   Third-party advertising management partners may help us display tailored content to our customers' interests and serve interest-based advertising on our behalf. Unique and our advertising management partners may use cookies, web beacons, and other tools to collect Online Information about your activities on the Service to deliver advertising on the Service or elsewhere on the Internet based upon your interests that may be more relevant to you and to measure effectiveness of our marketing efforts and the Service. In particular, Unique may use Google Analytics to monitor activity on the Site and assist with advertising.

   Some web browsers (including Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) incorporate a "Do Not Track" ("DNT") or similar feature that signals to websites that a user does not want to have his or her online activity and behavior tracked. If a website that responds to a particular DNT signal receives the DNT signal, the browser can block that website from collecting certain information about the browser's user. Not all browsers offer a DNT option and DNT signals are not yet uniform. Since "Do Not Track" technology has not been fully standardized, we currently do not honor "Do Not Track" requests at this time. We will continue to monitor "Do Not Track" developments so that we can work towards honoring the preferences of our customers as efficiently as possible.

6. Use of Information

   Unique uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of Sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users. Except as specified in this Privacy Policy, Unique does not rent, sell, trade or disclose your Personal Information to third parties without your prior consent. Unique may, however, use, process and disclose Personal Information to:

   • send information to customers about orders;
   • fulfill your orders;
   • process and collect your payments;
   • administer customer loyalty programs;
   • send you promotional marketing material about Unique’s company and partners;
   • customize, analyze, adjust and improve the Service to better meet your needs;
   • execute a sweepstakes, contest or other promotion;
   • enforce Unique's agreements with you;
   • provide you with important administrative information regarding the Service, such as changes to this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, rewards and loyalty programs, and other policies;
   • prevent fraud and other prohibited or illegal activities; and
   • comply with potential requests of law enforcement or data protection agencies.

   When possible, Online Information may be combined and/or linked to other Personal Information that you provided to us, in accordance with the purposes specified above.

   We may use your deidentified Personal Information and Online Information to prepare anonymized, aggregated data about our users ("Anonymized Data"). When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our Sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users, but we don't track which terms a particular user enters. Unique creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user, except to comply with applicable law, valid legal process, or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

7. Third Party Service Providers

   Unique employs other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf, such as fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, serving ads on our behalf, providing search results and links, and processing credit card payments. These third-party service providers have access to Personal Information needed to perform their functions (such as giving your email address to FedEx so that they can inform you if there is a problem with delivery) but may not use it for any other purpose.

8. Social Media Access.

   Unique may engage with its current and prospective customers on multiple Internet Marketing Channels/social media services (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter). If you contact us on one of our Internet Marketing Channels, request customer service via social media, or otherwise direct us to communicate with you via social media, we may contact you via direct message or use other social media tools to interact with you. In these instances, your interactions with us are governed by this Policy as well as the privacy policy of the social media platform you use. In addition, if you choose to access, link to, or log-in to our Websites or Internet Marketing Channels or otherwise communicate with us through a third-party social media service, you are granting us permission to access and use the information that you post or store on the applicable social media service in accordance with the privacy policy of that service and the privacy settings that are applicable to your account, and to store the user name and password you use to log-in to the applicable social media service. You further acknowledge that, by accessing or logging into our Websites or Internet Marketing Channels via a social media service, any information you provide to us may also become accessible to that service, subject to that service's privacy policy. For additional information and more details on how you can manage the information provided to us by these social media services, please review the privacy settings applicable to your account with the applicable social media service. We do not control, and are not responsible for, the privacy practices of such services. You should consult the privacy policy of such services for additional information.

9. Third Party Features

   The Service also may include an activity feed, social media buttons and widgets, such as the Facebook "Like" button or the "Share This" button. These features may collect and display your Personal Information, your IP address, and the page you are visiting on the Service and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. These features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on the Service, and your interactions with them are governed by the privacy policy of the third party that provides the feature.

10. Use of Service via Mobile Device

    If you use the Service through your mobile device, we may collect your geo-location information to assist us in fulfilling your order. We will not share this information with third parties and will only use this information for the sole purpose of fulfilling your order. You may at any time prevent the Service from using your location by turning this option off at the device level. When you use the Service through your mobile device, we also collect device type and UUID, a Unique identifier generated within the App, and store this information in log files. We use this information to provide you with the most up to date application and features or to advertise or promote products or services to you that are applicable to your device type.

11. Third-Party Links

    We may provide links to third-party websites that we do not own or control. We are not responsible for the information collection practices of any website that we do not own or control. We encourage you to review and understand the privacy practices of third-party websites before providing any information to or through them.

12. Acquisition of Unique

    In the event that a store, division, or part or all of Unique (or the assets of a Unique affiliated entity) is bought, sold, or otherwise transferred, or is in the process of a potential transaction, customer information will likely be shared for evaluation purposes and included among the transferred business assets.

13. Blogs, Reviews and Forums

    The Service also may from time to time offer publicly-accessible blogs, customer reviews or forums. Any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected and used by others who access them. To request removal of your Personal Information from blogs, customer reviews or forums, please contact us here. Please note that in some cases we may be unable to remove your Personal Information.

14. Sharing Of The Information

    Unique uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and to better understand our audience's demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

15. Security

    Unique operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers. We also take reasonable steps to ensure that third parties who work with us to make the Site (including the software, applications and services provided on the Site) available to you agree to protect personal information that they must access in order to serve you and to honor your preferences about contacts you receive.

    When you send or otherwise transmit your sensitive information (such as your credit card number) to or though the Sites, your sensitive information is encrypted and protected with SSL, the current industry-standard encryption protocol. When you are on an SSL-protected page, a picture of a closed lock appears at the bottom or top of some web browsers. Another way to tell if you are on a secure page is to check the URL or address of the page. (Look in the address box or right-click on the page and select "Properties".) These secure SSL-encrypted pages have URLs that start with "https://" instead of "http://".

    Please understand, however, that it is possible for third parties to access information despite our efforts. Without limiting the terms of our Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy, you understand that we do not guarantee that your use of the Site and/or information provided by you will be private or secure and we are not responsible or liable to you for any lack of privacy or security you may experience. You are fully responsible for taking precautions and providing security measures best suited for your situation and intended use of the Site. You also understand that any information provided by you or collected by us or our agents in connection with your use of the Site will be used in the manner described in our Terms of Use. Please do not use the Site if you do not agree to the terms and conditions described in this Security section. If you have any questions about security of the Site, please contact us here.

16. Opt-Out Policy

    If you tell us that you do not want us to use your Personal Information to contact you, Unique will respect your wishes. We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

    • Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
    • Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users.

    You may choose to invite someone else to use the Service by providing his or her name and email address. We may use this information to send invitations to such individuals, to track the results of such invitation referrals, and to confirm qualifying orders attributable to your registered account. Anyone who receives an email invitation to use the Service may opt out of receiving such emails in the future by following the opt-out instructions in the email. We take commercially reasonable steps to implement all opt-out requests promptly, but those who opt out may still receive communications from us as we process the opt-out request, or as required for order processing and other purposes.

    You may also instruct Unique to stop sending you emails, newsletters or other information by following the 'unsubscribe' instructions provided in the email. Unique may, however, continue to use your Personal Information to contact you to service your account or as otherwise authorized by law. Please note that if you use more than one name or e-mail address when communicating with Unique or using the Service, you may continue to receive communications from Unique to any name and/or email address not specified in your opt-out request. If you would like to modify or delete your Personal Information, please contact us here with clear instructions about what you would like to be modified or deleted. We will respond to your request promptly.

17. Retention of Personal Information

    Unique retains Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by applicable law.

18. Visitors from Outside of the United States

    The Service is hosted in the United States. If you are visiting the Service from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable US laws. Please note that data protection and other applicable laws of the United States may not be as comprehensive as those laws or regulations in your country or may otherwise differ from the data protection or consumer protection laws in your country. By using the Service, you consent to transfer of your information to our facilities as described in this Privacy Policy.

19. Right to Removal of Posted Information - California Minors

    If you are under 18 years of age, reside in California, and have a registered account with Unique, you have the right to request removal of unwanted information that you publicly post on the Service. To request removal of such information, you can contact Unique as provided below. Upon receiving such a request, Unique will make sure that the information is not publicly available on the Service, but the information may not be completely or comprehensively removed from our systems and databases.

20. Your California Privacy Rights

    This Privacy Policy describes how we may share your information for marketing purposes. You may contact us here with any questions and, to the extent applicable, to request a list of third parties to whom we may disclose information for marketing purposes and the categories of information we may disclose.

21. Changes to our Privacy Policy

    We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices. When we post modifications to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of this web page. The modified Privacy Policy will be effective immediately upon posting on the Service. Your continued use of the Service after the posting of the modified Privacy Policy constitutes your agreement to abide and be bound by it. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy and security policies. If you object to any modification, your sole recourse is to stop using the Service.

22. Questions About our Privacy Policy

    If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or the Sites generally, please contact us here.

23. Subpoenas or any Lawsuit

    Contact Unique's legal department at legal@unqiueusainc.com